Cutting Off Doors for New Flooring

By Larry Walton

Cutting Off Doors to Clear for your New Flooring.

At Oregon Carpenters we hang hundreds of doors a year, so learning how to set them up for proper floor clearance is important. However, there are times when cutting off doors cannot be avoided especially on home-improvement projects where there has been a change in flooring.

Determining how much to cut off can be a problem. If in doubt, sneak up on it. In other words, cut off a little, try it and cut off a little more if necessary.

If the door is dragging on carpet, it works pretty well to put a No. 2 pencil on the carpet and mark the door. The radius of the pencil usually provides adequate clearance. Swing the door over the full arc of its travel and mark it where it drags heaviest on the carpet.

If you are on a new hard surface, like tile, wood or vinyl, and you can’t get the door on the hinges because it is too high on the new flooring, put the door as close as possible to position and measure how much it would need to drop to get the hinge plates to line up, or to get the hinge plate to settle into the hinge-plate mortise. Adjust this measurement to take off an additional 1/4 inch for clearance.

Here are the steps I take to cut off a door so it has clearance to swing.

One of the best ways to make sure you are cutting off the bottom and not the top of a door is to measure to the door hardware location, which should be about 36 inches from the bottom.

Lay a pencil on the carpet to mark the cut-off elevation on the door face.

Use your utility knife and combo square to score the door across the face.

Adjust your combination square to the amount you want to remove from the door bottom.